I spent the past year creating Price Hipster, a product search engine and price watching website for the OzBargain community!

Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 01/11/2015 - 11:45
Last edited 13/11/2015 - 12:45

Update 13/11/15: Thanks everyone for the support and feedback! I realise there are heaps of comments here and no one wants to read through them all. If you have a suggestion, it has probably already been raised. I'm currently working on a big update and I'll be sure to let you all know when I release it. I'll be keen to get further feedback and suggestions then. :-)

Hi fellow OzBargainers!

I've spent the past year creating a powerful tool for you all.

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/

These are the reasons I created Price Hipster:

  1. Searching for products across multiple stores is painful. Sometimes you don't even know which stores to check for a product. Wouldn't it be great to conveniently search all stores from one place?

  2. Even if you want to find a product in one particular store, most store websites are very bad at searching their own products, and they're slow at it.

  3. There is no convenient way to find out the previous prices of products, making it difficult to hold vendors accountable for false claims of discounts. Some products vary wildly in price. Some change price nearly every day. For example:

https://www.pricehipster.com.au/product?id=NJNmxsZ3k5n

I really appreciate those OzBargainers who have taken the time to use internet archives to dig up previous prices, but it's less than ideal, and hopefully will now be a thing of the past!

Price Hipster currently includes 5 websites in its index. That will expand in the near future.

Questions for you all:

  1. Which stores should be added next?

  2. OzBargainers in Western Australia, how is the search latency for you? The search servers are in Sydney. I live in Brisbane and the search is pretty much instantaneous here.

If you find any issues with the website or have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

General Discussion

Related Stores

Price Hipster
Price Hipster

Comments

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 14/12/2015 - 23:43

            @Hirolol: Well at the moment the best way you can support Price Hipster is by telling everyone about it. Something like this can only survive if it becomes popular.

            I won't be sticking banner ads on the site, or anything like that. I'll probably do featured products or something later on.

    • djz on 14/12/2015 - 19:40

      Absolutely fantastic website!

      It's like finally amazons price tracker website (camelcamelcamel) has finally arrived here!

      Some suggestions:
      - would love some more functionality like the ability to browse by store by showing the items with biggest price drops for that store.
      -show the lowest and highest price item has previously been (to know its as great special

      If you look at the CamelCamelCamel website and try to copy some of that functionality you could have an absolutely massively successful site in your hands!!

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 14/12/2015 - 20:29

        Hi djz, thanks for the feedback!

        You can already browse by store. Just click that filter icon in the search bar.

        I am not yet convinced showing the historical low and high price is all that useful (not that I have enough data at the moment anyway), since many products go to clearance levels (think less than $1) sometimes, which ruins the low price forever. Also, I've noticed that many sites list new products for very high prices then drop them after about 1 week. The prices never go that high again.

        • isthisreallife22 on 15/12/2015 - 01:15

          Maybe it should be more like a share price ticker / graph ?

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 07:39

            @isthisreallife22: What's the difference between a share price graph and what Price Hipster currently has?

          • Olokun on 15/12/2015 - 07:45

            @isthisreallife22: i am guessing in relation to being able to place your cursor over any point on the graph and see the date and price for that point in time.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 07:47

            @isthisreallife22: @Olokun: Okay. That's on my to-do list.

    • Olokun on 15/12/2015 - 06:21

      Back again

      Just to let you know that it seems Spotlight are using was and now prices. So if a price has been changed from the not so price, the new price won't be reflected on price hipster as it still captures the was price.

      Try and search ''Samantha Space Dye Rug".

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 07:42

        Awesome catch! Thanks. I'll fix that later today.

    • djprima on 15/12/2015 - 08:18

      Great site!
      Some suggestions when browsing from android:

      1. Pressing enter after typing in search will not do anything, usually I do it to refresh the page and hide my on screen keyboard

      2. No clear (x) button in the search box so I should press backspace to enter new keyword. Quite annoying if the previous search is a long word

      • Olokun on 15/12/2015 - 09:19

        2)Pressing the logo on the left of the search box will clear the text for you.

        • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/12/2015 - 10:47

          Hey, just letting you know that I added a clear button to the search input. Thanks for the suggestion!

          Edit: sorry, this was meant for djprima.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 11:14

        Thanks for the feedback. I use Android but I press the dedicated hide-keyboard button. "Refresh the page" doesn't make sense in the context of Price Hipster but I'll see about making the keyboard disappear when 'enter' is pressed.

        See my comment below about the 'X'. It's something I'll consider.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 20:43

        Hi djprima. I have looked into this and the only thing I could find that kinda does what you want is the 'blur' function. That may hide the keyboard for you but it also makes the input lose focus so someone typing "Enter" on a physical keyboard will be kicked out of the input (will have to click on it with the mouse to continue typing), and nothing else will happen —> bad user experience.

        What you are doing with "Enter" is submitting the form associated with the input, which causes a page refresh. Page refreshes are not a thing in single-page web apps, thus the browser's default (legacy) behaviour must be disabled.

        I suggest you get in the habit of using the dedicated button for closing your keyboard. :-)

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/12/2015 - 10:47

        Hey, just letting you know that I added a clear button to the search input. Thanks for the suggestion!

    • meumax on 15/12/2015 - 09:22

      How about an "X" button in the search window to clear the search term? It's more of a standard for UIs than pressing the logo.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 11:09

        I'll think about it, but there is a filter button there and I am careful about cluttering the UI. The worst case scenario is someone has to hold backspace for a second.

        I'll add that 95% of searches are less than 6 characters.

        • meumax on 15/12/2015 - 14:31

          Appreciate you considering that feature. I have to say though that what you consider the worst case scenario is very annoying. One of the primary use cases is evacuating an items in front of me in a store. Anything that takes extra time is frustrating when on the go.

          It was also not obvious to press the logo to clear the search. I had to see the above content to learn that. As I said, the x is the universal ui standard for that functionality.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 15:56

            @meumax: Yeah it is well-recognised. The logo click is different because it totally resets the page, not just clears the search. I'll see how it looks with an x there. Thanks again for the feedback.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/12/2015 - 10:48
            +1

            @meumax: Hi meumax, it's time for the frustration to end! I just pushed an update which includes a clear button in the search input. Thanks for the suggestion!

    • deejay44 on 15/12/2015 - 11:36
      1. Ability to sort
      2. ability to remove products from search results that contain certain words (ie searching "iPad -pro" would remove any iPad products with "pro" in its title
      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 15/12/2015 - 12:58
        +1

        Thanks for the feedback deejay44. Sorting is on the to-do list. Search term negation is also on the list, but a little further down. :-)

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/02/2016 - 11:55

        Hi deejay44, sort has now been implemented. Thanks for your feedback!

    • Olokun on 17/12/2015 - 18:45

      Hi Jazoom

      What is the chance of getting Harris Scarfe added?

      Their prices are always 'on sale' and it is impossible to know what the normal selling price is as the regular/was price is useless.

      Looking forward to seeing what you have instore next for your site.

      ps. Dick Smith has made a mess with all their epicly reduced prices for stock that can only be had from the last remaining store.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 17/12/2015 - 20:54

        I've added it to the list, thanks. Are they a bit like Homeart, are they?

        • Olokun on 18/12/2015 - 07:44

          Yeah they are kind of a cross between them and tagret/Kmart. Didn't realise that HS wasn't well known up in QLD.

          Thanks for fixing spotlight btw.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 18/12/2015 - 12:27

            @Olokun: You're welcome.

            I know of Harris Scarfe, but I've never been in one.

    • abh_gup on 19/12/2015 - 15:50

      perhaps 'the facebook icon link, twitter icon link and login/signup' can be shown at all times, rather than click the 'double bar' to get those (in which case the search bar dissapears, unless you click the 'double bar' again to get the search box). Maybe keep it all there on the page (i.e. search box, icons and login/signup link) for first glance, as it makes the features known, avoids the extra click. It also lets the site visitor know that they have logged in already or whether they can still log in.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/12/2015 - 16:07

        Hey, thanks for the feedback. I'm feeling what you're saying, and that is what initially happens, but on small devices and when searching (the header shrinks), there just isn't enough room for them, unfortunately. Did you have a specific idea for layout?

    • thydzik on 27/12/2015 - 14:27

      nice website.

      I would like to see search options for largest price drop, and search on multiple factors like price and price drop percent.

      the subscriptions isn't intuitive.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 27/12/2015 - 14:47

        Hi, what about subscriptions is not intuitive?

        • thydzik on 27/12/2015 - 15:21

          that you need to first search and then subscribe, I kept on subscribing first.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 27/12/2015 - 15:23

            @thydzik: What do you mean? How do you subscribe if you don't first search the product?

          • thydzik on 27/12/2015 - 15:44

            @thydzik: @jazoom:

            I mean trying to create an account first.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 27/12/2015 - 16:30

            @thydzik: @thydzik: What was it that you were imagining would happen?

          • thydzik on 27/12/2015 - 22:15

            @thydzik: @jazoom:

            I sign up for an account.

            then create the saved searches.

            from the account login view existing saved searches, del ect.

            it didn't look like there was a way to get all saved searchs without creating one first?

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/12/2015 - 08:38

            @thydzik: @thydzik: Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll put a message in the dashboard to say how to do this.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/02/2016 - 11:56

        Hi thydzik, just updating you that your request has now been implemented. You can now sort search results. :)

    • Olokun on 28/12/2015 - 17:42

      Hi Jazoom

      Is there any reason why none of these rugs are showing up in search results?

      http://www.target.com.au/c/home/mats-rugs/W130565

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 28/12/2015 - 17:48

        That's a good question. I guess they're hiding in some corner where my scraper can't find them. Either that, or they've been added to the site in the last few hours. ;-)

        P.S. I'm finishing an update at the moment which I'll release tonight. It includes a chart overhaul. I'll announce it on the Facebook page. When it drops, let me know what you think.

        • Olokun on 29/12/2015 - 10:29

          Loving the new price history chart, though I do find on my iPhone impossible to get the chart to expand/contract instead of the webpage it self.

          I was actually in TGG yesterday wishing I would see the exact historical price so I could get them to price match it. The new chart will definitely benefit shoppers over the previous one.

          Now for more stores to add to the list. Chemist Warehouse and Priceline if they are not already on the to do list.

          ps. The rugs are still not showing up. I wonder how many other items are also being missed? sneaky Target indeed.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 29/12/2015 - 10:48

            @Olokun: Yeah I have bigger fish to fry at the moment instead of making sure 6 rugs make it into the database. If Price Hipster indexes over 99% of products I'm pretty happy. I have plans for a different way of doing things that will avoid these imperfections.

            Zooming in will always be difficult on small touch devices. At the moment the initial x-axis range is the full history for all products, so you won't see any extra history by zooming.

    • brazen00 on 05/01/2016 - 08:44

      Some feedback for you Jazoom.

      On Woolies online, when a product has multiple sizes the listings are kind of stacked. A good example of this is Greek yoghurt. See the Jalna greek yoghurt has 3 sizes. Your site only seems to index the smallest size. So if I want to price alert 1kg Jalna greek yoghurt, it's not even in your database. Of course it's not just greek yoghurt, but anything with multiple sizes.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 05/01/2016 - 08:58
        +1

        I understand your pain. I love the Jalna Greek yogurt. I'll see if I can sort it out. Thanks!

    • okwombat on 07/01/2016 - 12:58

      Great site.

      Suggestions:
      * Add a list view in addition to the tiled view (both via search and price drops dashboard)
      * Include the ability to bring up the product detail view (with price history etc.) that is already available in the search view to the price drops dashboard view, too. At the moment it appears you can only change the price notification or delete the product.
      * Add ability to show both the normal price and current price in the price drops view.
      * Add ability to manually "link" to items to treat them as one alert/watch. This way one could setup one notification to watch the same product at two stores.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/01/2016 - 17:13

        Hi Matthew, those are great suggestions. They are all parts of the user experience I want to address in future. The last one you mentioned I believe is the most important.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 03/10/2016 - 11:38

        Hi Matthew, it's been a while but I wanted to let you know that I've finally implemented your suggestion about viewing product details from the price alert dashboard. Now that the infrastructure behind Price Hipster is maturing I can focus on smaller things like this. The update should be live later today.

    • Olokun on 07/01/2016 - 13:25

      I like the above suggestions.

      Also holding the backspace key to delete the search box for too long makes the browser go back to the previous webpage visited. Get annoyed at myself when I do it 2-3 times in arrow instead of learning my lesson.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/01/2016 - 17:13

        Haha, that does sound annoying. That actually sounds like an issue with your browser. I can't make it happen.

        • Olokun on 07/01/2016 - 17:17

          I am using Firefox.

          Only happens if you hold down the back space key when there is existing text. It you press backspace repeatedly instead to delete the text it will not go back a page.

          Edit. Does not happen in IE when tested.

          • rompastompa on 07/01/2016 - 17:19

            @Olokun: Stays in the text box for me. If you click off the text box, then backspace goes to the previous page.

            Does it do it on these text boxes in OzB too?

            Also; There is an X to the right of the text box which removes all text.

            You can disable the backspace going to previous page here

          • Olokun on 07/01/2016 - 17:22
            +1

            @Olokun: @rompastompa:

            There is an X to the right of the text box which removes
            Yeah habit from pre X update.

            Seems you can only change in about config, browser.backspace_action to either go back a page or scroll up.

          • rompastompa on 07/01/2016 - 17:24

            @Olokun: @Olokun:
            or install this Firefox add-on.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 07/01/2016 - 17:25

            @Olokun: I just tried on Firefox and cannot make it happen. As @rompastompa said, backspace does go back to previous page when the focus is not on an input element.

    • lyl on 09/01/2016 - 14:06

      Hey, when I select a store, and a price range ($10-$100), i can only see a certain amount of items before the page stops loading. Can you make it so that it's possible to see all items? Thanks.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/01/2016 - 14:33

        Hi lyl, can you please give me an example? Do you have a search in the search input?

        • lyl on 09/01/2016 - 14:33

          Sorry, I meant without search. Like instead of searching, I click the filter button, select a store, and a price range.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/01/2016 - 14:57

            @lyl: Can you please give an example of which store you select. I'm still not sure what the problem is. All products should be loaded that meet the filter criteria.

          • lyl on 09/01/2016 - 15:04

            @lyl: @jazoom:

            It meets the filter criteria, but it stops loading after a while.

            E.g. I select Big W and range $0-$10. After holding down pgdown key, it stops loading at items which are above $3.5

            It's just a small thing, but I use your site often to browse items of specific price ranges. Another suggest I guess it to allow us to enter in custom price ranges, that would be real neat. I don't mind it's the last thing on your to-do list, would just like to see more stores added for now.

            Once again, thanks for creating such a awesome site. Keep up the great work.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/01/2016 - 19:54

            @lyl: @lyl: wow, you must have scrolled down quite a long way. A custom price range is something I might implement in future. I have some improvements to make in searching etc as well.

            Thanks for the kind words!

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/02/2016 - 11:57

            @lyl: @lyl: Thanks for the feedback, lyl. I have just implemented your suggestion of custom price ranges. :)

          • lyl on 12/02/2016 - 11:58

            @lyl: @jazoom:

            Cheers so much, allowed me to find this: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/234364

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/02/2016 - 12:05
            +1

            @lyl: @lyl: Hey awesome! Thanks for the shout out.

    • Olokun on 09/01/2016 - 20:03

      Front page seems to have gone crazy. Seems Coles has changed some of the links or something?

      eg. Price hipster showing 1 lire, coles website 3 litre
      https://www.pricehipster.com.au/product?id=Nki_lW3sJc3

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/01/2016 - 20:14

        Yeah the front page is a bit off. I'm working on a big update to the core of the scraper and unfortunately I had to leave for a party before it got done. Hopefully everything will be sorted out tomorrow morning.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 09/01/2016 - 23:12

        Actually, maybe Coles is having issues. It appears their site is down for maintenance.

    • lyl on 14/01/2016 - 19:29

      Also, is it possible for you to implement a page showing ALL price drops in the past 7 days for a store? (even those that drop 5%) I feel like there are deals missed just by showing the top drops on the main page. Thanks.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 14/01/2016 - 20:35
        +1

        That's an interesting idea. I'm currently implementing something to help us find good deals so I'll see if I can work in something like your suggestion in future.

    • Olokun on 29/01/2016 - 15:43
      +1

      Hi Jazoom,

      Enjoying the new price range option.

      Is there any plan on any sort by options. I find that I prefer how the front page is sorted compared to when a store is selected or price range used. It would be good to be able to see all the 'front page' deals limited to a certain store or price range.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 29/01/2016 - 16:17

        Yes. The only reason I changed the price range thing already is because it was easier to do it that way when I changed to a new search database. I haven't really done the search overhaul yet. You can look forward to it getting much better in the not-too-distant future.

    • okwombat on 29/01/2016 - 16:20

      Another suggestion - it would be nice to have the item description in the subject of a price drop email. i.e. "Price drop on a product you're watching - Item Description".
      I've found that I receive multiple notifications at the start of the new grocery catalogue week (Wednesday). My email client groups all the items as though they are one conversation thread and hiding all but the latest price drop, by default. It'd be great to see these come up as unique threads.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 29/01/2016 - 18:31

        That's a great idea. Thanks. I'll do that soon. I know that automatic grouping thing can be really annoying. I've put some measures in place to limit text in the actual email being hidden as "quoted".

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 12/02/2016 - 12:02

        Just letting you know that I implemented your suggestion. Product names should be in the price drop emails now. :)

    • NotJustChickenDinner on 30/01/2016 - 00:52

      hI jAZOOM

      Tried to order Lego Star Wars The Ghost
      Lego Star Wars The Ghost
      $15.99
      normal price:
      discount:
      $139.99
      89% from david jones, pretty sure it was displaying the right picture ( higher end version ), but now it shows a cheapy version -

      ( pretty sure your webpage was showing the expensive version, now it showing the cheap version )

      I will call them tomorrow, just wandering if something went a miss?

      I was checking the codes and they brought up the expensive ones on amazon, target etc, but now looks like it is the cheap version

      same with this one ( they were both on your front page )
      Lego Star Wars Wookiee Gunship
      Lego Star Wars Wookiee Gunship
      $15.99
      normal price:
      discount:
      $99.99
      84%

    • Olokun on 11/02/2016 - 11:29
      +1

      Hi Jazoom

      Thanks for adding the sorting feature, looks greats.

      One issue I seem to be having lately is that when any filters are applied they seems to take precedence over the search word(s).

      For example:
      - sort by discount high->low
      - filter by officeworks
      - Search word = Samsung

      none of the results are for 'Samsung' until the 33rd result. (which does have the word 'Samsung' in orange highlight).

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 11/02/2016 - 11:33

        Yes, that is a tricky balance. The effect you are going for is the default sort, which gives priority to exact matches. The discount sort gives priority to the discount, regardless of how good the search match is.

        I will continue to tweak it. Thanks for the feedback!

        • Olokun on 11/02/2016 - 12:04
          +2

          Thanks for the clarification on how it currently works.

          From a users perspective, I can't imagine a use case where the search words wouldn't take precedence over any sorting done.

          In my above example would it perhaps be possible to make it that the sort filter is applied to say the top 100 results (if not all results) on the results that would be been returned had a sort filter not been used? Just a thought.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 11/02/2016 - 13:37

            @Olokun: I agree, and I have been thinking about this issue. I might only return exact matches for sorted searches because anything else would actually undo the sort, making it pointless.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/02/2016 - 12:27

            @Olokun: Actually, this is a bug. It appears to not take into account the search term at all. I'll sort it out now.

    • Food on 29/06/2016 - 08:34

      Jazoom,
      Charles Tyrwhitt seems to have taken over the homepage and most deals have no images.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 29/06/2016 - 10:32

        Hi, are you still seeing the problem? The images are there for me.

    • Olokun on 19/07/2016 - 16:15

      Excited to get home and test out the new filter.. Keep up the good work.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 19/07/2016 - 17:29

        Let me know your thoughts 😀

        • Olokun on 24/07/2016 - 19:21

          So I had a good play around with it and the new layout and filter works true to form.

          The only issue I have encountered is on my iPad 3 when in landscape mode (both in safari and chrome). Don't have this issue using iPhone with same version of iOS (latest).

          https://files.ozbargain.com.au/upload/121534/41093/image.png

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 24/07/2016 - 20:04

            @Olokun: Far out. Thanks for letting me know. I've got another update in the works so I'll try to fix this as well before I push it out.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/07/2016 - 21:19

            @Olokun: Should be fixed in this update.

    • Olokun on 31/07/2016 - 07:47

      Hi Jazoom

      Just wondering if you would know why on some PCs/Browsers I am able to use the keyboard to type in a store name and press enter when using the 'stores filters' and on some the keyboard does nothing.

      It would be good if this was possible across all browsers as it makes it easier then having to scroll through 114 stores each time you want to add a store to the filter.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/07/2016 - 08:21

        I did that because on mobile devices the keyboard would actually cover the list.

        Don't worry though. That will be irrelevant after the next update, which I'm hoping to push tonight. 😀

        • Olokun on 31/07/2016 - 08:26

          ok cool thanks for the quick reply.

          Sad to see that 100 days are up… Woke up the other day and was wondering were the new store was then I realised and thought… gees 100 days went by fast. Thank god for Pokemon to keep me occupied in lieu of daily new stores lol.

          Keep up the good work.

          • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/07/2016 - 08:32

            @Olokun: Haha. There will be new stores, but they will come in batches.

            I was going to make an email about it but I decided it more important to just spend time on this (crucial) update.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 31/07/2016 - 21:18

        I just pushed the update. Refresh your browser's cache and enjoy the goodness. :-)

    • divergent on 13/06/2017 - 16:03

      Hey jazoom. Great website. I thinks it really fills a need. I've had a good play around and I think it'll be a big help to me in my quest to shop bargains, especially on groceries.

      I, like others who have already brought this topic up, would love to be able to get a price alert for a particular product, regardless of who sells it. I know this normally requires someone on the back-end linking different retailer products together, which is a big job, but I have some suggestions that may make the job easier.

      Of course, the UPC would be the most ideal point of linking, but you mentioned before that you rarely get such details, so I'm assuming that the description is all you really have to go on as far as linking products is concerned.

      As an example of linked products I'll use these three items, which are all the same item, but have different names…

      Coles -> Smith's Crinkle Cut Original Potato Chips (170g)
      Woolworths -> Smith's Share Pack Crinkle Cut Original (170g)
      Dan Murphy's -> Smith's Crinkle Cut Original Chips 170g

      Suggestions

      1. Do it the old-fashioned, professional and time-consuming way of creating your own product list, and linking each retailers product to yours.
        For example, your product description could just be 'Smith's Crinkle Cut Potato Chips - Original - 170g'
        An example of this can be seen on Boozle, which does alcohol perfectly in my opinion.

      2. Change the Price Alert functionality to allow you to set a price alert for a search phrase rather than an actual product.
        For example, if I setup a price alert on 'Smith's Original 170g' then it would incorporate all three products.
        Note: this would require an exact match of all fields, not a partial match as you currently have with the website search.
        This is also my preferred option as it would automatically incorporate new retailers without me needing to visit your site to select their products.

      3. Allow users to link different retailer products together to do a price alert on both at the same time. Kind of like a user-defined grouping.
        For example, if I setup a group called 'Smith's Chips 170g' (I add '170g' to the end only because I like to buy the 330g when they're on special as well, which would require another group) and linked the different products under it.

      4. Allow the user to suggest to the system what products should be linked and automate some sort of linking based on this. This may make it easier and less time-consuming for you, or whoever you have administering the database. The details in suggestion 1 would be the first one I'd promote using this method. This is preferred over suggestion 3 only because it would allow all users to benefit from the linking.

      Moving on, I would like to see another addition, and that is the search option to do an exact match, rather than return a whole lot of items which don't completely match. Also, sorted searches returning only exact left-to-right text matches is pretty annoying. Changing this to exact keyword matches would be much better.

      And down the line, you could also consider incorporating future prices, say from catalogs. Receiving a price alert for sometime that was going to be on special in a couple of days would be an awesome feature. Are you able to crawl the catalogs when they become available on the sites?

      Anyway, brilliant product! Thanks for offering this service.

      • Store Repjazoom @ Price Hipster on 13/06/2017 - 16:15

        Hi divergent,

        Thanks for the great input. You've obviously thought a lot about this and know what you are talking about. They are all great suggestions.

        When you mention the matching of sorted searches, it's not exact left-to-right, since (using your example) "potato crinkle cut" returns the products you would expect. It's more that it doesn't do fuzzy matching. The reason for that is the results tend to be very irrelevant when you sort while fuzzy matching. Thanks for bringing it up, though. It's been a while since I've worked on that aspect and it might be time for me to revisit it.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join